over and found the domicile she was looking for. Surely,
Fortune was with her. The first door at which she signaled was answered by a query light. She punched in her identification number, which included her department affiliation. The door opened and a plump middle-aged man stared out at her. He had obviously been washing up before dinner. His dark blond hair was askew and he was not wearing any upper garment.
He said, “Sorry. You catch me at a disadvantage. What can I do for you, Dr. Venabili?”
She said a bit breathlessly, “You’re Rogen Benastra, the Chief Seismologist, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“This is an emergency. I must see the seismological records for Upperside for the last few hours.”
Benastra stared at her. “Why? Nothing’s happened. I’d know if it had. The seismograph would inform us.”
“I’m not talking about a meteoric impact.”
“Neither am I. We don’t need a seismograph for that. I’m talking about gravel, pinpoint fractures. Nothing today.”
“Not that either. Please. Take me to the seismograph and read it for me. This is life or death.”
“I have a dinner appointment—”
“I said life or death and I mean it.”
Benastra said, “I don’t see—” but he faded out under Dors’s glare. He wiped his face, left a quick word on his message relay, and struggled into a shirt.
They half-ran (under Dors’s pitiless urging) to the small squat Seismology Building. Dors, who knew nothing about seismology, said, “Down? We’re going down?”
“Below the inhabited levels. Of course. The seismograph has to be fixed to bedrock and be removed from the constant clamor and vibration of the city levels.”
“But how can you tell what’s happening Upperside from down here?”
“The seismograph is wired to a set of pressure transducers located within the thickness of the dome. The impact of a speck of grit will send the indicator skittering off the screen. We can detect the flattening effect on the dome of a high wind. We can—”
“Yes, yes,” said Dors impatiently. She was not here for a lecture on the virtues and refinements of the instruments. “Can you detect human footsteps?”
“Human footsteps?” Benastra looked confused. “That’s not likely Upperside.”
“Of course it’s likely. There were a group of meteorologists Upperside this afternoon.”
“Oh. Well, footsteps would scarcely be noticeable.”
“It would be noticeable if you looked hard enough and that’s what I want you to do.”
Benastra might have resented the firm note of command in her voice, but, if so, he said nothing. He touched a contact and the computer screen jumped to life.
At the extreme right center, there was a fat spot of light, from which a thin horizontal line stretched to the left limit of the screen. There was a tiny wriggle to it, a random nonrepetitive series of little hiccups and these moved steadily leftward. It was almost hypnotic in its effect on Dors.
Benastra said, “That’s as quiet as it can possibly be. Anything you see is the result of changing air pressure above, raindrops maybe, the distant whirr of machinery. There’s nothing up there.”
“All right, but what about a few hours ago? Check on the records at fifteen hundred today, for instance. Surely, you have some recordings.”
Benastra gave the computer its necessary instructions and for a second or two there was wild chaos on the screen. Then it settled down and again the horizontal line appeared.
“I’ll sensitize it to maximum,” muttered Benastra. There were now pronounced hiccups and as they staggered leftward they changed in pattern markedly.
“What’s that?” said Dors. “Tell me.”
“Since you say there were people up there, Venabili, I would guess they were footsteps—the shifting of weight, the impact of shoes. I don’t know that I would have guessed it if I hadn’t known about the people up there. It’s what we call a benign vibration, not associated with anything we know to be dangerous.”
“Can you tell how many people are present?”
“Certainly not by eye. You see, we’re getting a resultant of all the impacts.”
“You say ‘not by eye.’ Can the resultant be analyzed into its components by the computer?”
“I doubt it. These are minimal effects and you have to allow for the inevitable noise. The results would be untrustworthy.”
“Well then. Move the time forward till the footstep indications stop. Can you make it fast-forward, so to speak?”
“If I do—the kind of fast-forward you’re speaking of—then it will all just blur into a straight line with a slight haze above and below. What I can do is move it forward in fifteen-minute stages and study it quickly before moving on.”
“Good. Do that!”
Both watched the screen until Benastra said, “There’s nothing there now. See?”
There was again a line with nothing but tiny uneven hiccups of noise.
“When did the footsteps stop?”
“Two hours ago. A trifle more.”
“And when they stopped were there fewer than there were earlier?”
Benastra looked mildly outraged. “I couldn’t tell. I don’t think the finest analysis could make a certain decision.”
Dors pressed her lips together. Then she said, “Are you testing a transducer—is that what you called it— near the meteorological outlet?”
“Yes, that’s where the instruments are and that’s where the meteorologists would have been.” Then, unbelievingly, “Do you want me to try others in the vicinity? One at a time?”
“No. Stay on this one. But keep on going forward at fifteen-minute intervals. One person may have been left behind and may have made his way back to the instruments.”
Benastra shook his head and muttered something under his breath.
The screen shifted again and Dors said sharply, “What’s that?” She was pointing.
“I don’t know. Noise.”
“No. It’s periodic. Could it be a single person’s footsteps?”
“Sure, but it could be a dozen other things too.”
“It’s coming along at about the time of footsteps, isn’t it?” Then, after a while, she said, “Push it forward a little.”
He did and when the screen settled down she said, “Aren’t those unevennesses getting bigger?”
“Possibly. We can measure them.”
“We don’t have to. You can see they’re getting bigger. The footsteps are approaching the transducer. Go forward again. See when they stop.”
After a while Benastra said, “They stopped twenty or twenty-five minutes ago.” Then cautiously, “Whatever they are.”
“They’re footsteps,” said Dors with mountain-moving conviction. “There’s a man up there and while you and I have been fooling around here, he’s collapsed and he’s going to freeze and die. Now don’t say, ‘Whatever they are!’ Just call Meteorology and get me Jenarr Leggen. Life or death, I tell you. Say so!”
Benastra, lips quivering, had passed the stage where he could possibly resist anything this strange and passionate woman demanded.
It took no more than three minutes to get Leggen’s hologram on the message platform. He had been pulled away from his dinner table. There was a napkin in his hand and a suspicious greasiness under his lower lip.
His long face was set in a fearful scowl. “?‘Life or death?’ What is this? Who are you?” Then his eye caught Dors, who had moved closer to Benastra so that her image would be seen on Jenarr’s screen. He said, “
Dors said, “It is not. I have consulted Rogen Benastra, who is Chief Seismologist at the University. After you
